Jennifer had built a successful career and a happy family life when she strayed from her marriage. While the first affair ended rather quickly, the second led down a path she couldn’t have imagined. Here part one of her story in the new Girl Boner Radio episode.
This episode touches on childhood trauma, abuse and infidelity/cheating. Please take care while listening or reading.
Stream it on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spotify or below! Or read on for a transcript.
“Untangling Her Affairs: Jennifer, Part 1”
a Girl Boner podcast transcript
Jennifer: You’re welcome to call me Jennifer or Jen… I live in Florida, born and raised. And I am out in the country, just went from a city girl to a country girl roughly three years ago…
August/narration:
Jennifer’s also a mother of two who’s built a successful career – against multiple odds. She loves animals and her family…and she has a warmth you can feel when you’re in her presence. I also find her deeply generous. She chose to share her story of infidelity with us – from the stance of the one who strayed – so that others can benefit.
I was so moved by her openness, and her willingness to share her experiences. Betrayals can be deeply painful, from all sides – and often rife with shame, judgment from others and isolating silence. I join Jennifer in her hope that by hearing her story, those of you who relate in some way will feel supported.
Regardless, I think most of us can stand to gain some understanding and compassion around the topics you’ll hear about in this mini series — which includes childhood trauma as well. We just never know what’s going on in others’ lives, or what they’re carrying.
When I spoke with Jennifer, she had been listening to Girl Boner and knows that we talk a lot about pleasure and orgasms. So we started there.
[acoustic, encouraging music]
Jennifer: I was extremely sexually active all through my very early teenage years and did not actually have my first orgasm until I met my husband. I thought that I knew what it was. I thought that I was having one simply because I was just wet, but did not learn until I actually had one that I was missing out.
Way back in the day, I remember late at night, I would turn on, I called it the “snowy channels,” where, you know, it wasn’t a channel that we were paying for, but you could hear.
I could tell by the audio that it was sexual content, and I would sit up late at night and just listen to that. I knew that I was turned on. Listening to it, I would hear the girls say things like, “I’m coming,” and I would just hear her moaning. So I just kind of really wasn’t sure, I guess, completely what an orgasm was. But just thought it was a moment of, you know, feeling really good. And that’s why you would hear extreme moaning.
August:
So then obviously when you experienced an orgasm, it was a very obvious shift from that. What was that like for you as far as that realization? Were you just excited? Did you feel a little ripped off because you didn’t know yet?
Jennifer: Definitely excited, to the point where I remember I kept saying it over and over again to my husband. “Oh my God, I actually just had my first orgasm,” and he was like, “Are you serious?” So he was just surprised. And I’m sure it made him feel good, obviously, to know the amount of sexual partners I had before him and that he was the first one to actually do it for me.
Hindsight looking back, there were no true, genuine feelings for the men that I was with prior to him. It was more enjoying the attention, and not a true intimate connection. So I think that played a part as well.
August/narration:
Jennifer was just starting her young adult life when she met her would-be husband, Adam.
Jennifer: He was my best friend’s boyfriend. My very first time meeting him, I was with her, and we had just left high school together, and she brought me to his work. He worked at a tire store and she, you know, introduced me. There was nothing immediately. Obviously, he was taken and she was my very good friend and so it, you know, never even crossed my mind my initial time meeting him.
And then through, hanging out together a lot catching a glimpse from across the room and, very quickly just developing feelings. You know, I was attracted to him. And while his girlfriend slash my very good friend was at work, we really started to flirt.
August/narration:
Jennifer’s attraction to Adam surprised her.
Jennifer: I was very much a city girl and he was very much a country boy, the complete opposite of what I ever would have imagined myself even being interested in.
August/narration:
One day, Adam invited her out into the woods.
Jennifer: I know that sounds odd, but, in our small town, that’s what the country boys did. They, you know, they had the trucks with the big mud tires, and they would go out to the woods and, you know, go through the mud, and that was just the thing.
I made fun of the fact that that was what they did for fun. I was like, that’s so weird! And he was like, “You don’t know what you’re missing, I’ll take you out there and show you.” Of course I did have a really good time.
August/narration:
At the time, they were still friends who flirted with each other. Then, a couple of weeks later, they spoke openly about their feelings for each other for the first time. And Adam was still seeing her friend.
Jennifer: Obviously, I felt really bad, because she was my good friend. He was not happy with her. They fought all the time.
August/narration:
Adam ended that relationship. Shortly after, Jennifer moved in with him. They had two kids within 3 years – a son and then a daughter. A year later, Adam proposed. In 2006, the couple said their “I dos.”
August: What was your wedding like?
Jennifer: It was amazing. I was very much one of those brides that got wrapped up in the Wanting the big wedding. And we spent way too much money on it, but we got married in a church, but it was beautiful. We had all of our close friends and family. We had probably about 150 people there. It was everything I wanted and more, that’s for sure.
August/narration:
Five or six years into the marriage, Jennifer had an affair.
Jennifer: During that time, I had transitioned from a job that I had had for eight years. It was, my very first, what I would refer to as a real world job. It was my first job in caregiving, healthcare. Basically grew up there, had kids, got married while I was employed there. And then I transitioned into working in senior living, and went up the ladder pretty quick.
August/narration:
Jennifer put her all into her work, and she was proud of all she had accomplished – especially given the environment she grew up in, surrounded by addiction and financial instability. Among her peers, teen pregnancy ran rampant. And she had no role models for a career.
Jennifer:
I can remember walking up to work and, and just thinking to myself, holy shit, I run this place. Like, this is crazy. It just was so surreal to me that given, you know, my past, I think it made me feel even more proud.
August/narration:
It was an exciting time, and…all-consuming.
Jennifer: I feel like I put both Adam and the kids on the back burner during that time because I had just completely dedicated my everything to making sure I was successful in that role.
August/narration:
Jennifer worked her way up, becoming the executive director of an assisted living company. Along with her growing success, though, she grappled with insecurities.
Jennifer: Still questioning, was I even deserving of it? How did I get this?
August/narration:
Adam was supportive of her career, but they weren’t having the conversations she wished they’d have. He was focused on the money she’d be making, she said, versus the hard-won evolution she cared about.
Jennifer:
So it was kind of an area that we just didn’t see eye to eye. Yes, money is important, but to me, happiness in your job is more important. I guess you could say I didn’t feel supported in my growth.
August/narration:
Someone else started to fulfill that need for her. His name was Brian. They’d worked together at her previous job.
Jennifer: I just started turning to him for that exact conversation I was looking for and he was extremely supportive. He would always say, “Gosh, I’m so proud of you,” because he, too, had a hand in my growth.
August/narration:
Brian was older than Jennifer, had more experience in the field – so she really appreciated his guidance and encouragement.
Jennifer: I would constantly tell him, ” I couldn’t have done it without you,” you know, “Thank you for showing me the way. Thank you for telling me you’re proud of me. That makes me feel good.”
I wouldn’t say that my marriage was in a bad place, but I found in Brian the support that I did not have in Adam.
August/narration:
Soon, the friendship/mentorship crossed professional lines.
Jennifer: Conversations started with always being job related — you know, “Hey, how do you think I should decorate for this party?” Or, “What kind of theme do you think would be good for this event?”
It went from that to him sharing frustrations with his current girlfriend, or sharing frustrations with his personal life, which then opened up my comfort level to share some of my frustrations.
August/narration:
Frustrations with her own marriage.
Jennifer: It took a hard turn, when we started to play a game on a phone called Words with Friends. It happened pretty quickly as far as going from just being really close friends and support systems for each other to using that game, to start talking inappropriate to each other.
We put a little spin on the game, where when you created a word you then had to use the word in a sentence. We both started using the words and sentences that had something to do with sex, basically.
August/narration:
Brian’s girlfriend had already been suspicious of their relationship, back when they were talking literally as just friends. So Jennifer and Brian started to tease that:
Jennifer: Well, she thinks we’re doing it anyhow.
August/narration:
Which led into:
Jennifer: Talking about what we would do to each other, if we ever did decide to do anything.
August/narration:
They also started spending more time together in person.
Jennifer: We both were event planners, so we would go shopping for decorations, and just bounce ideas off of each other.
August/narration:
Those ideas became sexual, too.
Jennifer: While we were shopping, we would kind of reflect and laugh about some of the sentences and words that we had used the night previous playing the game.
August/narration:
One day they decided to put their talking to the test.
Jennifer: And see if we’re just talking or if we are really going to do something. We made a plan to go shopping. After shopping, we were going to go to a hotel room. And we both agreed that it was gonna be nothing more than just sex.
August/narration:
The planned day arrived, and they started to execute it.
Jennifer: We went shopping, then we went to the hotel room.
August/narration:
And then…Brian’s girlfriend showed up.
Jennifer: Because she had followed us that day.
August: I’m sure that was a very difficult moment. How did that pan out?
Jennifer: It totally was like one of those scenes off of that TV show, “Cheaters.” We both had just got up into the room and immediately it was just very awkward.
Of course, nobody knows what would have happened. But Because it was awkward, had she not shown up, I don’t think we would have moved forward with anything.
I think we would have both just laughed about, like “Yeah, you’re right, we were just shit talking and we’re good friends, this is weird,” and we would have left. I don’t remember everything she said, but she of course was just very upset.
August/narration:
That was the end of her communication with Brian. Adam found out about it, too.
Jennifer: He of course was very upset. I know this may sound strange, but what proceeded after is kind of a fog to me. I remember just crying a lot. I remember he wouldn’t come home for the first day or two. I wasn’t sure where he was. He wouldn’t answer his phone.
I remember reaching out to some of my family and sharing my embarrassment of what happened and how sorry I was and how much I love and care about Adam. I don’t know why I did what I did. You know, just begging for forgiveness.
August/narration:
She did the same with Adam, when he eventually came home.
Jennifer: Begging for forgiveness and I just vaguely remember him taking some time and was very distant over the next couple of weeks.
August/narration:
Adam said he forgave her — he’d forgive, but not forget.
Jennifer: That kind of was it. It was almost too good to be true how quickly he was willing to just move forward and put it behind us.
August: So at that point you weren’t looking at trying to work on your marriage at all, right? To you it felt like, oh, I messed up and he accepted it and is like, I’m going to give us another chance and we’re just going to move on.
Jennifer: Correct. Yeah. From what I recall during that time, there was never any discussion of any issues in the marriage that were lacking anything. If anything, it was the opposite. I was just trying to assure him that he was the man of my dreams and that I had no desire to be with anybody else and I just made an awful, awful decision. And it moved really quickly into putting it behind us.
August/narration:
Gradually, Jennifer and Adam got back into a normal routine. Life went on. For months and then several years. Then, a second affair started.
Jennifer: It was a gentleman that I had a relationship with prior when I was very, very young, 13 to be exact. And he was 20 years older than me.
August/narration:
His name was James. We’ll get to that age difference and what it meant about their dynamic and for Jennifer later.
Jennifer: One day I had a Facebook friend request from him, and I accepted it.
And then that turned into, very quickly, a message in my inbox. At first it was small talk, you know, “Hey, how are you? You look good,” that kind of stuff. And then he said that he had heard I was trying to get my mom on public assistance, Medicaid and disability and some other things that I was struggling with, and that he had some connections and he could help me get her established on everything.
He was bragging that he was on Medicaid and disability and I remember messaging back and forth saying, you know, “How in the world are you on that stuff? You don’t even qualify.” And that’s when he was just like, “I’m telling you, I’ve got the connections. You want to have dinner and we can talk about it?”
August: So you went to dinner. And were you getting any sense that he wanted something more than to be supportive?
Jennifer: Yeah. Very, very quickly. And I feel like I knew even before physically seeing him that there was a very strong chance that he was going to attempt to say something or do something.I was looking at it as an opportunity to almost rub in his face what a great quality of life I had. Because he hurt my feelings when I was younger.
Back then at the age of 13, you don’t know what love is. But I thought that I loved him. And he just dropped me. So it was an opportunity for me to let him see the kind of car I drive and to brag about the kind of job that I have and let him see the wedding ring, the size rock that I have. It was just a very immature mindset.
August/narration:
Beyond wanting to show Brian what she had accomplished since he hurt her, Jennifer really wanted to help her mom get the support she needed.
Jennifer:
Because that burden was on my shoulders. Both financially and everything with taking care of her.
August/narration:
So she said yeah, she’d have a meal with him.
Jennifer: By the time I got to his apartment complex to pick him up, it had to have been 9:30 or something like that. I was supposed to have been there earlier, but got caught up with some stuff at work. And so there were no restaurants open. So he said, “Well, how about we stop and get something to drink?” And, I said, “I’m not really into that, I don’t want to go to a bar.” And he said, “Well, how about I grab something to drink for you and we go back to my place and talk.”
And that’s when I knew. I was just like, Yeah, this is definitely not going to go well. And I just remember talking to myself, you have the ability to not let anything happen. It’s going to be fine.
So we went to a liquor store. He went inside and grabbed some alcohol. And then went back to his place and went inside. I remember sitting on his couch and he said something along the lines of “Why are you so stiff? I’m not gonna hurt you.” And I was just like, “I’m fine. New place. I’ve never been here I don’t know. I guess I’m just a little nervous.”
Then he sat next to me and we talked a little bit about his ability to help get my mom on some assistance. And I was excited to talk through that. Then he put his hand on my leg, and it was just instant, almost, I felt loss of control.
August/narration:
Her body remembered his touch. It pulled her back to her childhood, when she was 13 and going through complicated emotions.
Jennifer: Like just the excitement of somebody who I longed for his attention . I remember staying up late into the night waiting for him to return my page. Back then we had pagers and I would page him and just wait for him to call me back.
And all of those butterflies came back very, very quickly just by him putting his hand on my leg. Very quickly went into kissing and next thing I know, we’re on the bed having sex. It was very quick. It was very, non-satisfying for me. I immediately just was mad at myself. Like, why the hell did you just do that? What are you thinking?
August/narration:
But she had to keep the connection, she told herself.
Jennifer: I gotta get Mom on the assistance she needs. It’s drowning me. It’s weighing on my shoulders. And so I’ve gotta at least get that.
August/narration:
Before the night was done, James gave her information for her mom that seemed helpful for that.
Jennifer:
So I left there with the mindset of, I’ve just made a horrible, horrible choice. But nobody knows that I’ve done it but me. I’m just gonna pretend that it didn’t happen, get what I need from James, and then be done with it. And I’m not hurting anybody. So it’s gonna be fine. That’s the mindset I had on night one.
August/narration:
Soon, things only got more complex.
August: What can you share about the depth of how far the affair went?
Jennifer: Mostly it was about two nights a week that I would see him. It went on for two months, and I totally just blamed it on work. I continuously made the excuse that I was working, that I needed to go out of town to one of my other communities for work. That was not out of the normal. And so I didn’t feel like there was any reason for there to be any red flag for Adam to question anything. It was just too easy. He didn’t question anything.
So when I would go and see him, we would do things like go to dinner or play and have fun. We went to the movies a couple of times. We would go shopping and walk the beach. All the things that I didn’t do with Adam.
There was a lot of sex, of course, involved. And again, none of it was satisfactory for me. And I think the main reason for that is because there was just a lot of guilt involved in the actual action. I would get wrapped up in the fun when we were walking the beach or shopping or out to eat laughing. He’s a very funny guy.
August/narration:
He made her feel good mentally, she said, at least when they weren’t having sex.
Jennifer: Because he’s very protective, and I like that. Adam is not at all that kind of guy. And he was constantly telling me that I was pretty, how good I looked in my business clothes.
August/narration:
Also unlike Adam. She figured she could enjoy those things until the affair ended.
Jennifer: I knew there was never going to be any long term relationship. That was never what I wanted. I just kept telling myself, I’m going to do what I have to do to get what I need from my mom, and then cut things off.
August/narration:
At least, that was the plan. Instead, Adam found out about the affair.
Jennifer: So I had a work meeting that I was flying out of town for. And James wanted to go. At first I was just like, no, you know, it’s work related. I’m not gonna have time to entertain you. and he was just, “’That’s okay. As long as I can be with you at night, I don’t care.” I was just like, “You’re crazy. No, I’m not taking you. No.” And he begged and again, just kept saying, “I just want to be there to lay with you at night.” So I booked him a flight to join me.
August/narration:
By that point, unbeknownst to Jennifer, Adam was getting suspicious.
Jennifer: He started noticing that I was gone a lot. Things just started to not add up to him.
So he started to just pay attention a little bit more to where I was saying I was going and. He could tell that I had become distant with him.
With the red flags, he just started to watch things a little closer and he had got into my iPad and decided to do some research and that’s when he looked in my Gmail and found some things that solidified what he was questioning.
August/narration:
Adam now knew she was cheating on him.
Jennifer: And then when he saw the flight tickets he knew for sure who it was.
August/narration:
Jennifer was about to leave for the trip when Adam approached her.
Jennifer: He was actually helping me put the luggage in my car and I went to give him a hug and a kiss goodbye. And he said, “I hope you and James have a good trip together.” And I just stopped out of my tracks and said, “Excuse me?”
And he was like, “I know, Jennifer. Enjoy your trip. And when you get back, be ready to talk about how we’re going to split everything up.” He was just very monotone. There was no anger in his voice. There was no emotions involved.
It was just very eerie. I just started to cry and he walked away. I remained outside just standing there thinking, Oh my God, what have I done? I just was so upset with myself.
August/narration:
She followed Adam back inside.
Jennifer: At that point, he was emotional. I could tell that he was crying and I, of course, was crying really bad as well and just was begging for forgiveness. And he was not entertaining any of it.
August/narration:
“Absolutely not,” she recalls him saying. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this. I can’t believe we’re here again.” He had just started to fully trust Jennifer again after everything with Brian. Once the shock settled some, Adam seemed more hopeful.
Jennifer: Almost like the time with Brian, where he just all of a sudden went into the mode of, We’re going to work through this and it’s going to be okay.
August/narration:
When Jennifer ended the affair, James didn’t take it well.
Jennifer: I told him “You’re not going to Atlanta with me. Adam has found out. I feel awful. We’re done.”
James was very much, “No, I want to be with you. Don’t end it.”
August/narration:
“I need to,” she told him.
Jennifer: “Adam is who I want to be with. I’m sorry I’ve done this. The road ends here.”
August/narration:
Then she went on the work trip alone. Adam insisted that she go – he knew how important this particular trip was for her career. They’d talk through things when she returned.
Jennifer: And so, that’s exactly what I did. I went on the trip and it was just for three days. But I would text and call Adam and just check on him.
August/narration:
Adam started paying more attention to Jennifer, too.
Jennifer: I hadn’t gotten my nails done in a really long time because I just was trying to save money. He said, “I want you to start doing your nails again. You need to take care of yourself better.” Just being sweet, which was almost bittersweet. I, of course, didn’t feel like I deserved it.
August/narration:
Then something happened that shook Jennifer in a whole new way. She realized she was newly pregnant — something she didn’t think was even possible then.
Jennifer: Being almost 40 years old, I didn’t even think I could get pregnant. Adam and I had been having unprotected sex for the past, gosh, I believe five years at least. And so I had it hammered in my head that I’m just too old and not able to have children anymore.
August/narration:
Her emotions swirled.
Jennifer: I was scared. I was scared that Adam was going to not be able to get past things the way he was with Brian. Because this time there was sex; there was a lot of sex. And more deeper stuff with this affair.
And so I kept thinking, He’s going to come to the realization that he’s married to a whore who can’t seem to be loyal and he’s going to leave me.
August/narration:
But she also thought:
Jennifer: Here is an opportunity, if the child is Adam’s, to basically seal our marriage — because I know he wouldn’t leave me with a newborn. And it will give us something to enjoy again.
Because what I had realized was that our children, turning into adults with their own lives created a huge void in our marriage. And so I just was using this pregnancy as a very sick, manipulative way to fill that void with another child.
And if the child was not his, I would abort it, kind of going back to that, nobody’s gonna know. But I have to figure out who the baby belongs to.
August/narration:
So she reached out to James.
Jennifer: And let him know that I was pregnant that I thought that it was his because, Adam and I had been having unprotected sex for years and if it is yours, I want to raise the baby with you and have a life with you.
And so I told him this awful lie, but I was going to need him to participate and pay for the blood test to determine if he was the dad or not.
August/narration:
Those tests typically can’t be performed until near the end of the 1st trimester.
Jennifer: And so over the course of the next three months, I had lots of conversations with James. We spent a lot of time on the phone together. And it was just conversations where I was just telling lies of this life that we were going to have together if the baby was his. And just kind of entertaining him and dragging him along the way in order to get him to take the blood test.
August/narration:
There were some power dynamic things going on there, related to abuse, which we’ll get to.
Regardless, though, I couldn’t help but wonder how isolating this all must have felt for Jennifer – feeling the need to lie, keeping this huge secret, plus ongoing worry about the outcome.
August: You’re navigating this very much on your own. Even though you were talking to James about it, there was this very complex thing happening with him. And so I can sense that it must have felt lonely. How were you feeling emotionally at that time before you found out whose baby it was?
Jennifer: Just scared. Scared that I was going to get caught again. Even though I made a very firm boundary that absolutely there would be no meeting up
August/narration:
And definitely no sex.
Jennifer: But there was still always the question of whether or not, texts that we send back and forth, am I going to forget to delete some of them? Am I going to forget to delete his call out of the call log in my phone?
All of that weighed heavy on my mind. I know that it caused me to be very foggy brained at work. Of course, on top of all of that, hiding pregnancy sickness. It definitely was awful… I have some very, very good friends, but none that I felt comfortable enough admitting what I was doing, because it was an awful thing. I mean, Adam is such a great guy, that I just felt so ashamed of my actions that I definitely didn’t want to bring any of my very good friends into sharing what I was going through.
August/narration:
Finally, Jennifer received the DNA test results. They showed that James was the father.
Jennifer: It was definitely upsetting. I remember crying, and then thinking, okay, now I’ve got to make the appointment for the abortion.
August/narration:
And her lies continued.
Jennifer: I called James and told him that I was bleeding, and I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t look good. That I think I might be miscarrying, and he was very upset.
August/narration:
That night, Jennifer went to the abortion clinic alone. She booked a hotel room nearby so she could recover privately — and used a work excuse with Adam. But then, Adam reached out.
Jennifer: It was like midnight and when my phone rang and I saw his name on the caller ID. I instantly knew something’s wrong. Because why is he calling me this late at night? And so I didn’t answer at first. I just kind of went into panic mode of thinking, how does he know?
August/narration:
He called again, back to back.
Jennifer: And then I finally answered. And he just was very, very mad. This time there was a lot of emotion in what he was saying. He talked to me in a way that he’s never talked to anybody that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. And it hurt very, very, very bad, because he’s just such a kind person. And it takes a lot to get him angry. I never saw that side of him.
August: And what had he found?
Jennifer: So he decided to go and look at our call logs. Of course, James’s phone number all over the records.
August/narration:
Understandably, she said, Adam laid into her:
Jennifer: “I can’t believe you, I should have known better. We’re absolutely done — no ifs ands, or buts this time. I was an idiot for taking you back the first time. And then the second time, and here we are a third time.”
August/narration:
Then Jennifer shared everything – about the pregnancy, her plan if it had been Adam’s baby, the abortion. While that honesty was important, at that point it didn’t help. It was all too late and made little sense to Adam. So Jennifer, still recovering from her procedure, went into panic mode and drove home. She wanted to try to fix things, impossible as that seemed.
Back at home, Adam’s harsh words and Jennifer’s apologies and pleas continued. She slept on the couch…and couldn’t seem to make sense of anything for herself. Her mind spun and spun.
Within 48 hours, she knew she needed help – to sort through her behaviors and deceptions, with hopes of healthfully moving forward. She hopped online and found an intensive in-patient therapy program in New Jersey.She told Adam it was something she felt she needed to do.
Jennifer: I had shared with him that I was just very lost and confused and questioning who I am and what I’m about and why I’ve made such awful decisions and that I needed something to figure it out. And so I was checking myself into an intensive therapy, and it was going to be for 30 days. His response was, “I don’t care what you do. It’s not going to change anything. We’re still done.”
August/narration:
Jennifer understood. She told him:
Jennifer: I respect your decision, and I understand why you’re making that decision, but I still need this for me. I’m not a good person right now, and I’ve got to figure out I’ve got to got to figure out what’s going on.
August/narration:
Jennifer saw no other way forward, whether they parted ways or not. And it was far from easy from the get-go.
August: So you started this program and what was that like for you, those 30 days?
Jennifer: It was the absolute scariest thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. Just the commitment to put myself first to do it for 30 days, that is something I’ve never done in my life, to walk away from work for that amount of time, to walk away from family for that amount of time.
Checking into the actual place was awful, awful, awful. I mean, it was like a scene out of a movie. I got there really late, so you stay in this house with a bunch of girls, and then every day, they transport us to the actual center where the therapy sessions take place. And so when I got there, the therapy sessions were already over, so I did not get to partake in their regular orientation, which is apparently much more smoother and, warm and fuzzy.
So, instead, I walk into this house with these ladies. One of them is yelling at another one because she thinks she stole her charger. Another one is in the corner, gossiping about another because she thinks that she went to the liquor store the night before.
August/narration:
Just a lot of loud chaos. Where even was she?
Jennifer: I just basically went into panic mode saying, “I think something’s wrong here. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, but this is not where I’m supposed to be.I’m not on drugs. I’m not addicted to alcohol.” I could hardly talk. I was just crying so bad. And the lady was Nice, but also very direct. She was like, “Oh, honey. You’re in the right place. Everything’s going to be fine.”
And she pointed me to another girl. And she said, “This is Christine. She’s going to be your roommate. So, she’ll help you with your luggage. You’re in room three.” And I was just like, oh my gosh. How do I get an Uber out of here. This is awful.
So, I go upstairs. And, thankfully Christine was very, very kind and she embraced me with a big hug and she’s like, “Oh, honey, don’t worry about those girls. You’re in the right place. You’re going to be fine.”
August/narration:
The next morning, she had the full orientation and felt much better. Then, the therapy sessions began. And Jennifer was determined.
Jennifer: And so I just gave it my everything and when I say I gave it my everything, August. I poured my heart and soul into what I was there for.
August: Oh, that’s tremendous. And you had some major epiphanies about your childhood. Would you share how that came about and kind of the moment that you realized a connection?
Jennifer: Yeah… Sorry, I got a little emotional there.
August: Oh, that’s okay. Take your time. If you need a break or some water, feel free to…
August/narration:
As you may’ve guessed, Jennifer ended up exploring a very dark time in her life. But that’s not where she thought therapy would lead, and it definitely didn’t start there.
Jennifer: Probably the first couple of days, I was focused on trying to fix my marriage. After the therapy sessions, we would all go back to the house at like 430 or so, and I would just spend the rest of the evening in my bed, calling and texting whoever would listen to me, that Adam and I are meant to be together, I’ve got to fix this, what is he saying, what is he doing? It wasn’t until after the first couple of days that I finally came to the realization that that’s not why I went there. And I needed to focus on myself, and figuring out who I am, and what was the void in my life, these god awful choices being made repeatedly. And I’m putting such an amazing guy down in the dirt.
I’ve got to put him on the back burner as crazy as that is, but I have to put him on the back burner and I have to, do what I came here to do and that’s work on myself. and that’s when some things really started to basically uncover themselves. And so many of the topics in the group therapy sessions and even in the individual therapy were about childhood trauma, childhood trauma — that was the huge focus.
And I can remember, talking about, “I’m a survivor and I beat the statistics,” and, “everything says that I should have been knocked up at an early age, and to have some sort of an addiction and an empty career life and I beat the odds.”
August/narration:
Very quickly, Jennifer started to see that while she had survived a lot, she’d been victimized, too. And she was still dealing with unprocessed trauma.
Jennifer: I was just really good at putting on, I don’t want to say a show, because it’s not like my life was fake, what I would allowing myself to think because I had so many good things going on that that was signs of being a survivor when really I was just pushing down the childhood trauma stuff and not dealing with it because I didn’t think there was anything to deal with.
August: And what do you want to share, if anything, about the, you’d called it a relationship with James, when you were 13. Is there anything you’d like to share about what actually happened?
And what you realized, that it wasn’t just this, “oh, I had a crush and et cetera.”
Jennifer: Um, it was, it was sick. It was wrong. It was, it was not okay. Any individual that seeks any type of sexual relationship with somebody of that age is a sick person. And they have their own issues that They need to uncover. Maybe they have childhood trauma. Maybe they, too, were a victim of some sort of sexual abuse at a young age.
But it doesn’t matter how mature you are, or how mature you think you are, A 13 year old child has no business being involved in any kind of sexual relationship with anybody, but especially not somebody of 20 years older.
I thought I was so mature for my age. I just didn’t see the problem. It felt good. It felt good to have the attention, and it felt good mentally because, being insecure with myself, having somebody older and cooler in my mind give that attention to me made me feel more secure.
August: Yeah. And we know that people who abuse kids in that way, too, they prey on insecurities and on the things that make us vulnerable when we’re kids, which is such a hard thing. And as you said, comes from, often, their own trauma. I’m curious, and I don’t want to put any words in your mouth at all, so tell me if this is not the word you would use. But, it seemed like he groomed you in adulthood, lured you in in a way. Do you consider that grooming and were you also able to see that pattern that, oh, this happened back then, and oh, no wonder I fell into this again?
Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. It’s funny that you use that word, because that’s exactly what I discovered in the therapy is the grooming process and how a person that is an adult can see where the weak points are in the child and focus on preying on that.
Whether it be the insecurity with themselves physically, or having the absent father like I did, or having the mother who is an alcoholic and would use the, fact that I was sexually active as a way for her to benefit rather than something that she should have protected me from.
August/narration:
In other words, her mom knew about the abuse. She’d even leveraged it to get money.
Jennifer: There was never any conversation of this shouldn’t be happening. Instead, she would get drunk and she would threaten to call the police and report the person I was sleeping with, because James wasn’t the only older man that I slept with at that age. There were threats to call and report it, unless she could get money to shut her mouth.
So as the adult man seeing those weak points and, utilizing them to, raise me up and make me feel better about myself. Absolutely. There was a lot of grooming.
August: Mm. Did that help you have compassion for yourself as an adult? And also, I imagine a lot of feelings came up about looking back at yourself as a little girl, too. How did that impact just your, your sense of self compassion or even maybe anger, looking back now as a mom, too?
Jennifer: It’s interesting because while I defend the actions in the aspect of there was nothing wrong with it, I was mature for my age, everything I just said, at the same time, I was extremely protective, especially with my daughter — also with my son, but more so her — with not allowing her to go stay the night with friends. Making sure that our house was always full of fun so that the friends would want to come and stay the night with her rather than her going to houses that, what if there’s a creepy uncle in the basement or something like that.
I just was very, very paranoid, Doing everything I could to make sure that my children were not sexually abused.
So it’s interesting to me how I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, and I didn’t think I was affected by it. I felt like I was a survivor, but at the same time, I did everything I could to the extreme to make sure that my children didn’t have any of that repeated trauma in their life.
Jennifer: And then realizing that the only way that I could truly walk away from New Jersey with no more weights and feeling like all of that was truly behind was nothing other than forgiveness. Everybody in my life that hurt me.
And so I was able to do that. It took me a little while, but I wrote letters to the people that I needed to forgive. And the biggest person I needed to forgive and that was myself. To forgive myself for what I had done to hurt others and my actions, and to allow myself to let go of it and to come home with just a clean slate.
August/narration:
That wasn’t easy, she said, or a quick thing. But it was a start. She had done the work, taken the proper steps and gained so much self-awareness.
August: How did you feel when you left? It sounds like you went through some major transformation.
Jennifer: I did. I felt empowered. I felt ready to tackle the world. At the same time I was terrified because at that point I was coming home to a man that was wanting to divorce me and that there was a lot of difficult conversation ahead of us of who’s going to leave the property and who’s going to stay on the property and how is this going to look financially and so all of that was heavy on me. But I still felt very empowered because I felt like I was given the tools to properly get through.
August/narration:
Jennifer left the therapy program feeling like a whole new person — or maybe finally like herself. Still, she had no idea if Adam would forgive her. Whether he did or not, what would happen next? What she hadn’t realized was how much more healing work remained.
That’s what you’ll hear about next time on Girl Boner Radio, in part two of Jennifer’s story. You’ll also hear from a therapist who played a major role in this story and its outcome.
[acoustic, encouraging music]
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[…] trauma of affairs to establish, rediscover and maintain healthy relationships. In this bonus for Jennifer’s story, you’ll hear some of his thoughts about working with Jennifer and Adam, risk factors for cheating […]